Neat - Diane Trout

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Neat

When talking about trying to learn how to use a sword, one of my female friends warned me of the dreaded "too much upper body strength" and the corresponding fear of looking too masculine. This lead me to do some web searches for for what do physically strong women look like, and I found Women's weight training, a site extolling the advantages of weight training for women.

Comments {9}

(no subject)

most women don't bulk up with muscles like men do. i believe that this is mostly due to the differing levels of testosterone that men and women have. strong women are generally wiry and sleek, not huge and musclebound. i'm thinking linda hamilton in terminator 2, here (though that's also an image linked to a low percentage of body fat). there are women bodybuilders, but that's an entirely different process than general weightlifting... and i think that most of those women are either genetically predisposed to build large muscles, or push it along with steroid use.

i've got a lot of upper body strength (at least, for a woman my size). i strength train, and do aikido, and other physically active things. and, i don't think that anyone in their right mind can say that i look too masculine - i'm much more hyper-femme. okay, my shoulders are probably broader than those of most women my size, but some of that is just my own genetic predisposition. (like, i've had large calf muscles since i was a kid. i remember having mucho trouble finding winter boots when i was in fourth grade; ones that fit my feet were nowhere near big enough to go over my lower legs. and i was so not physically active back then.)

maybe being short generically helps with looking more feminine, too...

(no subject)

oh, in response to your question:Can a woman be attractive with visible muscle?

heck yeah. thought, i must admit that i do like a bit of body fat to go alone with it. a strong female with, say, less than 10% body fat looks too taut, drawn out, and (literally) unhealthy. (we're talking "you can see every individual muscle fiber in each muscle", amenorrheic, and most likely anorectic and osteoporetic.) something with a healthy level of body fat looks much better.

(no subject)

i believe that this is mostly due to the differing levels of testosterone that men and women have

Last night I asked some FtMs about how going on testosterone changed them. They found that their default strength with no training increased, and it was easier to bulk up, though the larger bulk didn't necessarily seem to correlate with being stronger.

When I was reading "She's not there" the author, a trans-woman, commented on how she felt like she lost a lot of upper body strength when she went on estrogen.

I never noticed losing any upper body strength. I'm probably stronger now than at any other point in my life, though I do regularly do yoga+basic calisthenics.